1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates to barbecue grills of the type that have been gas fired and equipped with automatic ignition means for lighting the burner.
2. Description of Prior Art:
Heretofore, gas fired barbecue grills have been equipped with ignitor boxes adjacent to the burner which ignited the gas by a spark struck within the ignitor box. This type of ignition box was fully enclosed except for the side disposed toward the burner and worked satisfactorily when the burner was first ignited and the grill was cold, but when the grill was in operation and the burner was hot, if the flame was extinguished by turning if off, or by a wind gust, it became extremely difficult to restart the burner.
This was in all probability due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the collector, or possibly due to convection currents that carried the gas straight up from the hot burner and prevented it from flowing into the collector for ignition. The ignition boxes of this type were rectangular and the opening into the box from the burner area did not exceed the total area of the front side of the box so that the effect was to constrict the entrance against the ready flow of gas from the burner into the box.
The lack of sufficient oxygen in the gas mixture entering the enclosed ignitor box prevented the gas from being ignited even though the spark was struck repeatedly because the mixture was not conducive to ignition.